"I had no other choice, Ahamo!" Nesa defended herself to her husband as he got dressed for bed. The tension between the couple was thick as cream as Ahamo tried to come to terms with the fact that his youngest daughter was now no longer his.

"You could have at least told me about it before you went and did … that!" His voice wasn't particularly loud, but it got the anger across just the same.

"You make it sound like I sold her to the mines. Jareth is my brother."

"One that you hardly ever talk about and whom you haven't seen since our wedding day."

Nesa fell silent, refusing to respond for a long interval. When she finally responded it was in a soft voice, "Jareth is the King of the Unwanted, Ahamo, but he is a good man and a good king. He will take good care of our daughter as she learns about the dark magick within her."

"You gave her to him, Nesa. She's not our daughter anymore."

--

Jareth massaged the bridge of his nose with one hand as he tried to ease the headache that was taking over his head. A headache named Aerenesa. How dare she use his position like this! Just because her daughter had inherited a strong dark magick.

As he lounged in his favorite chair in his private study he let his thoughts wander and somehow they ended up on what had transpired some three months before his sister's call: a runner had completed the Labyrinth. It wasn't a particularly uncommon occurrence to have a runner complete the challenge to win back the right to the wished away child, but this runner had been different.

"But what no one knew was that the king of the goblins had fallen in love with the girl …"

His mind could hear her speak the words to her baby brother as he stood crying in his crib. It seemed the youthful vixen didn't realize how truthful her words were.

Jareth's body was on autopilot as he walked through the halls of his lonely castle. Perhaps having his niece there would lift some of the gloom of the place. He entered DG's room, nodding on his way in to Coriander who stood in the hall.

When he looked on the exhausted child sprawled across the bed his heart was filled with a fierce need to protect and love her. Already his mind was drawing conclusions about what Nesa's wish had done: his sister's words had given him a daughter and an heir. Truly, DG was not Toby, but she would be a wonderful and loving Goblin Queen.

He approached the bed and gently removed her shoes from her feet before waving a hand to change her into a white cotton nightgown. She stirred when the magick replaced her clothing and Jareth covered her up with the soft comforter.

In response, her uncle sat down on the bed and began to hum to her, one hand stroking her hair in a fashion not unlike what his mother used to do when he couldn't sleep as a lad. That had been before the dark side of the land had chosen him.

The little princess quietly down and fell back into a deep slumber as his voice sung soft words into the night air. Jareth kept on singing, letting the song comfort him as well as the child who was now his own.

--

Days passed into weeks as Azkadellia and DG became more and more depressed as the separation inflicted upon them ranged on. Neither princess could quite understand why DG's binding with the Land could have such an impact upon them. It just didn't seem quite fair.

Jareth was able to look past his own depression at the loss of his ignorant bond-mate to see the failing spirits of his niece. It didn't take him very long to realize what was ailing her.

"DG, would you like to see Azkadellia again?" he asked one morning at breakfast when the two were alone save for their personal guards.

His niece immediately lit up, "When?"

"Whenever you wish," he replied, his voice calm and loving as he produced a mirror for her to look at. "This mirror will allow you to view her wherever she is, through the link you already have with her."

DG frowned as she began inspecting the mirror in her hands, "No one was supposed to know about that."

"I assure you that your mother and father do not." This seemed to put DG at ease as he continued, "I am only aware of it because of our shared bonding with the Labyrinth."

"How does it work?"

"Look inside yourself and find the link to your sister. When you have it pull on it and look into the mirror. It will show you where she is, no matter how much distance separates you two."

"Can she see me, too? Can we talk to each other?" Dg spouted off the questions faster than Jareth could answer them.

He smiled at how happy she looked at the prospect of speaking with her sister. "Yes, you'll be able to talk to her and she will be able to speak back as long as she is close to a mirror or a body of water."

DG closed her eyes tight, wanting to make sure that this gift actually worked. When she opened them again, after finding her link to Az, she looked at the mirror and saw her sister sitting in front of her vanity, brushing her hair while tears fell from her brown eyes.

"Az!" the younger princess said happily.

A squeak emitted itself from Az's mouth as she dropped her brush. Her eyes were wide in wonder as she looked through her mirror to her sister. "Deej?"

"I miss you," DG said as she nodded. "Uncle Jareth showed me how to do this. We can do it any time we miss each other."

"I miss you, too, Deej," Az replied. Her eyes flickered down to her brush, picking it up and continuing to brush her hair. "I wish I could come visit you."

DG looked at her uncle, who seemed closed off to her now that she was amused by the mirror. "I wish you could, too. You'd like it here, Az. There are so many fun places to go exploring in the Labyrinth."

Az just smiled sadly, knowing her wish and her sister's would never come to pass if Mother had anything to say about it.

--

"Coriander?" DG asked later that day as she skipped along one of the paths in the garden, her guard right behind her.

"Yes, your highness?" the hobgoblin replied, an amused smile on her face as she watched the much happier princess skip along.

"Why do all the other goblins and hobgoblins have names like Squet and Brinn when you have a name like Coriander? It doesn't make sense."

The guard smiled slightly. Squet and Brinn were the guards that watched over the princess while she slept. "I've a secret."

DG stopped in her tracks and turned to her daytime guard. "Tell me."

Coriander leaned in closer and whispered into the princess's ear, "I'm not only hobgoblin." She leaned back with a smile. "My grandmother is a gnome. She named me."

DG's eyes were wide in wonder at the new information. "That's so cool."

The guard just smiled and led the princess back to the palace for her naptime.

--

As time when on, DG grew to love the Labyrinth and it's lands as much as she loved Finaqua and the Northern Island. It was a part of her, as much as her heart and lungs were and she found as she grew up that she couldn't live without it. And as she grew to love her new home, she also grew to love her uncle as the surrogate father that he was.

Jareth, for his part, loved his niece and gave her everything he could to help prepare her for the day when she would have to take her place as Goblin Queen. Doting on his niece allowed him an escape from the pain of his still mending heart, and DG made it oh so easy to dote upon her.

Soon after he gave her the mirror, they developed a routine of sorts: in the morning they would eat breakfast together; followed by DG's lessons on Goblin law and history, while Jareth dealt with miscellaneous paperwork his clerks thought could only be dealt with by him; the pair would take the mid-day meal together in one of the gardens when the weather permitted; this would be followed by the lessons Jareth felt could not be delegated to anyone other than himself and a select few of his top advisors; dinner would be held privately in the family dining room; and after dinner the two would bid each other good night so that DG could talk with Az and so that Jareth could finish up whatever tasks were left to be done. It was a good schedule, and it served them well as DG learned how to be a princess, and the roles she would carry as the future Goblin Queen.

By the time DG was fourteen annuals old she had learned as much Goblin history and law as she could, started sitting in with her uncle while he met with his generals and the populace, become quite proficient in sword play, hand-to-hand combat, and she improved her aim with both a pistol and a bow. Her magick was growing in leaps and bounds and Jareth sent for the best tutor in all of the Underground to teach her the intricacies of her abilities. Her skill as an equestrian was phenomenal, as was her skill at dancing (probably a perk to having fencing lessons as well).

All in all, she was shaping up to be the perfect princess … except for her dispassionate stance on the noblemen who had begun to trickle in to try their luck at gaining her hand in marriage.

The strange thing about it, though, was that she had no idea why she couldn't even bring herself to like these men that came to see her. She was supposed to be a normal adolescent with hormones, right? So why was it her libido only decided to rear its head when she was sleeping? It seemed almost every night she dreamt of a faceless man who could curl her toes with a look and had the most comforting embrace she had ever felt. It was only then that her cold heart would stir.

--

Azkadellia also excelled in her studies and responsibilities as Crown Princess of the Outer Zone. Because her kingdom required less of a war-like atmosphere, her studies did not include nearly as much self-defense as DG's studies did, however she was also required to learn court etiquette to a degree that would have any goblin keeling over in boredom.

She was also forced to entertain a broad number of potential suitors, and Az even entertained the idea of accepting one of them briefly, but in the long run her dreams won out and she realized at the age of twenty-two that she didn't want to marry just because it would be politically convenient. Azkadellia wanted to marry for love.

The only one she found she could confide in anymore was DG in their nightly talks as they prepared for bed. Her sister was the only one who knew of her desire to ditch her protection detail, if just for a morning, so that she could go exploring the forest surrounding Central City they was that the duo used to as children. Just as Az was the only one who knew of DG's nightly dreams, and her complete lack of romantic interest in her own suitors.

"It's not the bad, Deej," Az tried to sooth her sister one night before bed. "They're only trying to feel you out right now. Later on they'll start seriously courting you. But not for a couple of years, yet."

Deej growled in frustration, "It's not that, Az. It's just … I look at them and all I see are their political aims and their motives for wanting to be my Prince Consort. I feel nothing for them."

"Not even friendship with some? Or anger? Hate?" Az furrowed her brow at that. How odd.

Deej shook her head solemnly, "Nothing."

"How odd."

--

A/N: So ... I've decided to name each chapter after a song in my somewhat vast collection. Any questions, comments, concerns, please keep them to yourselves until the end of the ride, at which time I would like to direct your attention to the small button on the bottom left hand of the screen (some call it blue, others call it purple, but I don't care). If you click on it there will be a space for you to write all questions, comments, concerns, and anything else you might want to say ... just make sure there's no flames. I do not respond kindly to being told that "You're characters are so bad reading this gave me a headache." I'd rather you tell me what you don't like so I can try to fix it.